I had plenty of employment, for, besides attending to the severer cases, I had perpetual calls on my attention. The town contained at least 7000 inhabitants, and every one thought that he might come, and at least look at me. In talking with some of the more intelligent in the evenings, the conversation having turned from inquiries respecting eclipses of the sun and moon to that other world where Jesus reigns, they let me know that my attempts to enlighten them had not been without some small effect. "Many of the children," said they, "talk about the strange things you bring to their ears, but the old men show a little opposition by saying, 'Do we know what he is talking about?'" Ntlaria and others complain of treacherous memories, and say, "When we hear words about other things, we hold them fast; but when we hear you tell much more wonderful things than any we have ever heard before, we don't know how it is, they run away from our hearts." These are the more intelligent of my Makololo friends. On the majority the teaching produces no appreciable effect; they assent to the truth with the most perplexing indifference, adding, "But we don't know," or, "We do not understand." My medical intercourse with them enabled me to ascertain their moral status better than a mere religious teacher could do. They do not attempt to hide the evil, as men often do, from their spiritual instructors; but I have found it difficult to come to a conclusion on their character. They sometimes perform actions remarkably good, and sometimes as strangely the opposite. I have been unable to ascertain the motive for the good, or account for the callousness of conscience with which they perpetrate the bad. After long observation, I came to the conclusion that they are just such a strange mixture of good and evil as men are every where else. There is not among them an approach to that constant stream of benevolence flowing from the rich to the poor which we have in England, nor yet the unostentatious attentions which we have among our own poor to each other. Yet there are frequent instances of genuine kindness and liberality, as well as actions of an opposite character. The rich show kindness to the poor in expectation of services, and a poor person who has no relatives will seldom be supplied even with water in illness, and, when dead, will be dragged out to be devoured by the hyaenas instead of being buried. Relatives alone will condescend to touch a dead body. It would be easy to enumerate instances of inhumanity which I have witnessed. An interesting-looking girl came to my wagon one day in a state of nudity, and almost a skeleton. She was a captive from another tribe, and had been neglected by the man who claimed her. Having supplied her wants, I made inquiry for him, and found that he had been unsuccessful in raising a crop of corn, and had no food to give her. I volunteered to take her; but he said he would allow me to feed her and make her fat, and then take her away. I protested against his heartlessness; and, as he said he could "not part with his child," I was precluded from attending to her wants. In a day or two she was lost sight of. She had gone out a little way from the town, and, being too weak to return, had been cruelly left to perish. Another day I saw a poor boy going to the water to drink, apparently in a starving condition. This case I brought before the chief in council, and found that his emaciation was ascribed to disease and want combined. He was not one of the Makololo, but a member of a subdued tribe. I showed them that any one professing to claim a child, and refusing proper nutriment, would be guilty of his death. Sekeletu decided that the owner of this boy should give up his alleged right rather than destroy the child. When I took him he was so far gone as to be in the cold stage of starvation, but was soon brought round by a little milk given three or four times a day. On leaving Linyanti I handed him over to the charge of his chief, Sekeletu, who feeds his servants very well. On the other hand, I have seen instances in which both men and women have taken up little orphans and carefully reared them as their own children. By a selection of cases of either kind, it would not be difficult to make these people appear excessively good or uncommonly bad.
I still possessed some of the coffee which I had brought from Angola, and some of the sugar which I had left in my wagon. So long as the sugar lasted, Sekeletu favored me with his company at meals; but the sugar soon came to a close. The Makololo, as formerly mentioned, were well acquainted with the sugar-cane, as it is cultivated by the Barotse, but never knew that sugar could be got from it. When I explained the process by which it was produced, Sekeletu asked if I could not buy him an apparatus for the purpose of making sugar. He said that he would plant the cane largely if he only had the means of making the sugar from it. I replied that I was unable to purchase a mill, when he instantly rejoined, "Why not take ivory to buy it?" As I had been living at his expense, I was glad of the opportunity to show my gratitude by serving him; and when he and his principal men understood that I was willing to execute a commission, Sekeletu gave me an order for a sugar-mill, and for all the different varieties of clothing that he had ever seen, especially a mohair coat, a good rifle, beads, brass-wire, etc., etc., and wound up by saying, "And any other beautiful thing you may see in your own country." As to the quantity of ivory required to execute the commission, I said I feared that a large amount would be necessary. Both he and his councilors replied, "The ivory is all your own; if you leave any in the country it will be your own fault." He was also anxious for horses. The two I had left with him when I went to Loanda were still living, and had been of great use to him in hunting the giraffe and eland, and he was now anxious to have a breed. This, I thought, might be obtained at the Portuguese settlements. All were very much delighted with the donkeys we had brought from Loanda. As we found that they were not affected by the bite of the tsetse, and there was a prospect of the breed being continued, it was gratifying to see the experiment of their introduction so far successful. The donkeys came as frisky as kids all the way from Loanda until we began to descend the Leeambye. There we came upon so many interlacing branches of the river, and were obliged to drag them through such masses of tangled aquatic plants, that we half drowned them, and were at last obliged to leave them somewhat exhausted at Naliele. They excited the unbounded admiration of my men by their knowledge of the different kinds of plants, which, as they remarked, "the animals had never before seen in their own country;" and when the donkeys indulged in their music, they startled the inhabitants more than if they had been lions. We never rode them, nor yet the horse which had been given by the bishop, for fear of hurting them by any work.
Although the Makololo were so confiding, the reader must not imagine that they would be so to every individual who might visit them. Much of my influence depended upon the good name given me by the Bakwains, and that I secured only through a long course of tolerably good conduct. No one ever gains much influence in this country without purity and uprightness. The acts of a stranger are keenly scrutinized by both young and old, and seldom is the judgment pronounced, even by the heathen, unfair or uncharitable. I have heard women speaking in admiration of a white man because he was pure, and never was guilty of any secret immorality. Had he been, they would have known it, and, untutored heathen though they be, would have despised him in consequence. Secret vice becomes known throughout the tribe; and while one, unacquainted with the language, may imagine a peccadillo to be hidden, it is as patent to all as it would be in London had he a placard on his back.
27TH OCTOBER, 1855. The first continuous rain of the season commenced during the night, the wind being from the N.E., as it always was on like occasions at Kolobeng. The rainy season was thus begun, and I made ready to go. The mother of Sekeletu prepared a bag of ground-nuts, by frying them in cream with a little salt, as a sort of sandwiches for my journey. This is considered food fit for a chief. Others ground the maize from my own garden into meal, and Sekeletu pointed out Sekwebu and Kanyata as the persons who should head the party intended to form my company. Sekwebu had been captured by the Matebele when a little boy, and the tribe in which he was a captive had migrated to the country near Tete; he had traveled along both banks of the Zambesi several times, and was intimately acquainted with the dialects spoken there. I found him to be a person of great prudence and sound judgment, and his subsequent loss at the Mauritius has been, ever since, a source of sincere regret. He at once recommended our keeping well away from the river, on account of the tsetse and rocky country, assigning also as a reason for it that the Leeambye beyond the falls turns round to the N.N.E. Mamire, who had married the mother of Sekeletu, on coming to bid me farewell before starting, said, "You are now going among people who can not be trusted because we have used them badly; but you go with a different message from any they ever heard before, and Jesus will be with you and help you, though among enemies; and if he carries you safely, and brings you and Ma Robert back again, I shall say he has bestowed a great favor upon me. May we obtain a path whereby we may visit and be visited by other tribes, and by white men!" On telling him my fears that he was still inclined to follow the old marauding system, which prevented intercourse, and that he, from his influential position, was especially guilty in the late forays, he acknowledged all rather too freely for my taste, but seemed quite aware that the old system was far from right. Mentioning my inability to pay the men who were to accompany me, he replied, "A man wishes, of course, to appear among his friends, after a long absence, with something of his own to show; the whole of the ivory in the country is yours, so you must take as much as you can, and Sekeletu will furnish men to carry it." These remarks of Mamire are quoted literally, in order to show the state of mind of the most influential in the tribe. And as I wish to give the reader a fair idea of the other side of the question as well, it may be mentioned that Motibe parried the imputation of the guilt of marauding by every possible subterfuge. He would not admit that they had done wrong, and laid the guilt of the wars in which the Makololo had engaged on the Boers, the Matebele, and every other tribe except his own. When quite a youth, Motibe's family had been attacked by a party of Boers; he hid himself in an ant-eater's hole, but was drawn out and thrashed with a whip of hippopotamus hide. When enjoined to live in peace, he would reply, "Teach the Boers to lay down their arms first." Yet Motibe, on other occasions, seemed to feel the difference between those who are Christians indeed and those who are so only in name. In all our discussions we parted good friends.
Chapter 26.
Departure from Linyanti—A Thunder-storm—An Act of genuine Kindness— Fitted out a second time by the Makololo—Sail down the Leeambye— Sekote's Kotla and human Skulls; his Grave adorned with Elephants' Tusks—Victoria Falls—Native Names—Columns of Vapor—Gigantic Crack— Wear of the Rocks—Shrines of the Barimo—"The Pestle of the Gods"— Second Visit to the Falls—Island Garden—Store-house Island— Native Diviners—A European Diviner—Makololo Foray—Marauder to be fined—Mambari—Makololo wish to stop Mambari Slave-trading—Part with Sekeletu—Night Traveling—River Lekone—Ancient fresh-water Lakes—Formation of Lake Ngami—Native Traditions—Drainage of the Great Valley—Native Reports of the Country to the North—Maps—Moyara's Village—Savage Customs of the Batoka—A Chain of Trading Stations—Remedy against Tsetse—"The Well of Joy"—First Traces of Trade with Europeans—Knocking out the front Teeth—Facetious Explanation—Degradation of the Batoka—Description of the Traveling Party—Cross the Unguesi—Geological Formation—Ruins of a large Town— Productions of the Soil similar to those in Angola—Abundance of Fruit.
On the 3d of November we bade adieu to our friends at Linyanti, accompanied by Sekeletu and about 200 followers. We were all fed at his expense, and he took cattle for this purpose from every station we came to. The principal men of the Makololo, Lebeole, Ntlarie, Nkwatlele, etc., were also of the party. We passed through the patch of the tsetse, which exists between Linyanti and Sesheke, by night. The majority of the company went on by daylight, in order to prepare our beds. Sekeletu and I, with about forty young men, waited outside the tsetse till dark. We then went forward, and about ten o'clock it became so pitchy dark that both horses and men were completely blinded. The lightning spread over the sky, forming eight or ten branches at a time, in shape exactly like those of a tree. This, with great volumes of sheet-lightning, enabled us at times to see the whole country. The intervals between the flashes were so densely dark as to convey the idea of stone-blindness. The horses trembled, cried out, and turned round, as if searching for each other, and every new flash revealed the men taking different directions, laughing, and stumbling against each other. The thunder was of that tremendously loud kind only to be heard in tropical countries, and which friends from India have assured me is louder in Africa than any they have ever heard elsewhere. Then came a pelting rain, which completed our confusion. After the intense heat of the day, we soon felt miserably cold, and turned aside to a fire we saw in the distance. This had been made by some people on their march; for this path is seldom without numbers of strangers passing to and from the capital. My clothing having gone on, I lay down on the cold ground, expecting to spend a miserable night; but Sekeletu kindly covered me with his own blanket, and lay uncovered himself. I was much affected by this act of genuine kindness. If such men must perish by the advance of civilization, as certain races of animals do before others, it is a pity. God grant that ere this time comes they may receive that Gospel which is a solace for the soul in death!
While at Sesheke, Sekeletu supplied me with twelve oxen—three of which were accustomed to being ridden upon—hoes, and beads to purchase a canoe when we should strike the Leeambye beyond the falls. He likewise presented abundance of good fresh butter and honey, and did every thing in his power to make me comfortable for the journey. I was entirely dependent on his generosity, for the goods I originally brought from the Cape were all expended by the time I set off from Linyanti to the west coast. I there drew 70 Pounds of my salary, paid my men with it, and purchased goods for the return journey to Linyanti. These being now all expended, the Makololo again fitted me out, and sent me on to the east coast. I was thus dependent on their bounty, and that of other Africans, for the means of going from Linyanti to Loanda, and again from Linyanti to the east coast, and I feel deeply grateful to them. Coin would have been of no benefit, for gold and silver are quite unknown. We were here joined by Moriantsane, uncle of Sekeletu and head man of Sesheke, and, entering canoes on the 13th, some sailed down the river to the confluence of the Chobe, while others drove the cattle along the banks, spending one night at Mparia, the island at the confluence of the Chobe, which is composed of trap, having crystals of quartz in it coated with a pellicle of green copper ore. Attempting to proceed down the river next day, we were detained some hours by a strong east wind raising waves so large as to threaten to swamp the canoes. The river here is very large and deep, and contains two considerable islands, which from either bank seem to be joined to the opposite shore. While waiting for the wind to moderate, my friends related the traditions of these islands, and, as usual, praised the wisdom of Sebituane in balking the Batoka, who formerly enticed wandering tribes to them, and starved them, by compelling the chiefs to remain by his side till all his cattle and people were ferried over. The Barotse believe that at certain parts of the river a tremendous monster lies hid, and that it will catch a canoe, and hold it fast and motionless, in spite of the utmost exertions of the paddlers. While near Nameta they even objected to pass a spot supposed to be haunted, and proceeded along a branch instead of the main stream. They believe that some of them possess a knowledge of the proper prayer to lay the monster. It is strange to find fables similar to those of the more northern nations even in the heart of Africa. Can they be the vestiges of traditions of animals which no longer exist? The fossil bones which lie in the calcareous tufa of this region will yet, we hope, reveal the ancient fauna.
Having descended about ten miles, we came to the island of Nampene, at the beginning of the rapids, where we were obliged to leave the canoes and proceed along the banks on foot. The next evening we slept opposite the island of Chondo, and, then crossing the Lekone or Lekwine, early the following morning were at the island of Sekote, called Kalai. This Sekote was the last of the Batoka chiefs whom Sebituane rooted out. The island is surrounded by a rocky shore and deep channels, through which the river rushes with great force. Sekote, feeling secure in his island home, ventured to ferry over the Matebele enemies of Sebituane. When they had retired, Sebituane made one of those rapid marches which he always adopted in every enterprise. He came down the Leeambye from Naliele, sailing by day along the banks, and during the night in the middle of the stream, to avoid the hippopotami. When he reached Kalai, Sekote took advantage of the larger canoes they employ in the rapids, and fled during the night to the opposite bank. Most of his people were slain or taken captive, and the island has ever since been under the Makololo. It is large enough to contain a considerable town. On the northern side I found the kotla of the elder Sekote, garnished with numbers of human skulls mounted on poles: a large heap of the crania of hippopotami, the tusks untouched except by time, stood on one side. At a short distance, under some trees, we saw the grave of Sekote, ornamented with seventy large elephants' tusks planted round it with the points turned inward, and there were thirty more placed over the resting-places of his relatives. These were all decaying from the effects of the sun and weather; but a few, which had enjoyed the shade, were in a pretty good condition. I felt inclined to take a specimen of the tusks of the hippopotami, as they were the largest I had ever seen, but feared that the people would look upon me as a "resurrectionist" if I did, and regard any unfavorable event which might afterward occur as a punishment for the sacrilege. The Batoka believe that Sekote had a pot of medicine buried here, which, when opened, would cause an epidemic in the country. These tyrants acted much on the fears of their people.